How to Clean Mattress Stains (10 Minute Magic Green Cleaning!)

I never EVER thought I would be writing about “how to clean mattress stains”! After all, this blog is about beautiful DIYs and delicious recipes. Mattress stains? They never happen here!

Or do they? Our waterproof mattress covers have kept all our mattresses perfect like new. UNTIL a moving day when our guest queen mattress fell on the ground and acquired a few muddy spots. No big deal, I’ll just put some soap on the spots and clean the mattress stains with a rag!

I. Was. WRONG. After my two attempts, the mattress stains grew from a few tiny spots, to huge patches of cloud like patterns that reminds you of something much worse than mud or soap! HORROR!

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Luckily I was able to find the magic DIY green cleaner that completely cleaned the mattress stains in 10 minutes! It saved our it-was-like-new guest mattress from going to the landfill, and made the mattress look fresh and new again!

I realized that the question of “how to clean mattress stains” is actually worth writing about, among all the beautiful arts and crafts here. I will share with you this amazing green cleaning process, and 3 things you should NOT do when trying to clean mattress stains!

How to clean mattress stains in 10 minutes, naturally!

When my two attempts failed, our mattress looked like this. ( I don’t have any photos of the original muddy spots , because I was so confident that cleaning a mattress is easy! ) I decided to give it one last try because it seemed so wrong to throw away a mattress that was looking like new just 3 days ago. And it worked like magic! Below are closeups photos of before and after.

Reference point: you can see the black scratch mark on the upper right corner in the before photo, and it’s almost gone on the lower left corner in the after photo. I modified some of the mattress cleaning recipes and processes based on online research , and what I have learned from my two failures.

IMPORTANT:work in a ventilated space because there is definitely some reactions taking place!

Materials to clean mattress stains:

( Some of the helpful resources are affiliate links. Full disclosure here. )

Step 1: Spray mattress with diluted dish soap

Fill the 16 oz bottle with water and add 1 teaspoon of dish soap. Mix well and spray the entire mattress. The key here is to cover the surface of the mattress, use your hand and check to make sure there are NO DRY SPOTS! More on this at the end in “3 Things Not to Do” section.

You will likely use 1 to 2 bottles of the 16 oz water and soap mixture to spray an entire queen mattress. Work fast and move on to the next step while the mattress is damp.

Step 2: Spray mattress with diluted hydrogen peroxide

Fill the 16 oz bottle with half water and half 3% hydrogen peroxide . Again, mix well and spray the entire mattress. Spray a little extra on the stained areas.

Step 3: Dust mattress with baking soda.

While the mattress is damp, evenly dust the entire surface with baking soda. You will need 2-3 cups of baking soda for a queen mattress. Use a clean rag to spread the baking soda so it forms a thin layer of paste over the mattress surface.

The entire process will take less than 10 minutes. As you spread the baking soda, you can already see the mattress stains become lighter! Because there is a reaction taking place, work fast and keep windows open. Leave the room and let the baking soda dry overnight.

3 things NOT to do when trying to clean mattress stains:

1 . Do not spot clean mattress stains.

This was what I did. Day one, I used soap to clean the few muddy spots, and ended up with bigger areas of water and soap and dirt marks. Day two, I used soap and baking soda, according to some recipes on line, the stains got even bigger.

The key here is to spray the entire surface of the mattress with no dry spots, which means no watermarks later!

2 . Do not use bleach to clean mattress stains.

Bleach is really harsh on fabrics. Since we can’t run the entire mattress underwater to rinse off the bleach, it can also be harmful to air quality in the bedroom.

Wow I’m so impressed with how clean you got the mattress! We had our toddler have an “accident” in our bed a while ago and I gave up trying to get it out because everything I did made it worse! I eventually had an upholstery cleaner clean it but I wish I had seen this recipe first! Thanks for sharing, I’m definitely storing this info for later!

Genius!!! This also works for outdoor cushions! I tried to clean my outdoor cushions and ended up with the water “clouds”.all over them I thought they were ruined, but I used this same method and they look like new. I used very little baking soda, mostly on the spots, but the combination of ingredients is amazing! Thank you!

Great solution I wonder does this work on other stains also as I am close to hiring upholstery cleaners to clean a couch I have. I will be passing on your site as well to a friend who recently asked me how to get stains out of a newish mattress. Thanks

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Hello and welcome! I'm Ananda, a home and garden designer, artist, and lifestyle blogger in Southern California. When I started this blog in 2014, I never thought it would grow from 0 to over a million monthly views in just 3 years. I hope A Piece Of Rainbow becomes your trusted resource and good friend for living creatively and loving each delicious moment of life. Read More…